Stat­ues for fan­tas­tic four

AHEAD OF Ja­maica’s 55th In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions next year, Min­is­ter of Cul­ture, Gen­der Af­fairs, En­ter­tain­ment and Sport, Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange, has re­vealed that stat­ues of dec­o­rated Olympians Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will be com­mis­sioned as part of the Na­tional Sta­dium Statue Park’s de­vel­op­ment plans.

Ac­cord­ing to Grange, a to­tal of four stat­ues will be com­mis­sioned. The oth­ers are for for­mer men’s 100m record holder Asafa Pow­ell and mul­ti­ple Olympic medal­list, Veron­ica Camp­bell-Brown.

“The min­istry will com­mis­sion four stat­ues over the next two years for the fol­low­ing athletes – Usain Bolt, Shelly-Ann Fraser Pryce, Veron­ica Camp­bell-Brown and Asafa Pow­ell,” said Grange.

“The first two stat­ues of Usain and Shelly-Ann will be com­pleted in time for the Ja­maica 55 In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions next year and the other two stat­ues of Veron­ica Cam­bell-Brown and Asafa Pow­ell for the fol­low­ing year,” she con­tin­ued.

Grange was speak­ing dur­ing a pro­gramme of cel­e­bra­tion for Rio Olympians and Par­a­lympians, at the Span­ish Court Ho­tel in New Kingston, yes­ter­day, adding the stat­ues will be of the athletes’ lik­ing.

SUB­JECT TO AP­PROVAL

“Of course, the images will be sub­ject to the ap­proval of each ath­lete and the sculp­tor who is com­mis­sioned to do the work is the same sculp­tor who did the work for the Herb McKen­ley statue,” she pointed out of Basil Wat­son.

The de­vel­op­ment plan for In­de­pen­dence Sta­dium Com­plex, which will

in­clude the na­tional sports mu­seum, ac­cord­ing to Grange, will be done on a phased ba­sis over a pe­riod of two years. “There are other plans that are in the works, but at this time I will hold those an­nounce­ments for the fu­ture,” in­formed Grange. “I will em­pha­sise that what we are do­ing is not just about cel­e­brat­ing the achieve­ments of our athletes by hav­ing a big party, but we also will en­sure that we have legacy projects that will be a last­ing trib­ute to their achieve­ments,” Grange stressed. She was speak­ing in ref­er­ence to the He­roes week­end cel­e­bra­tions (Oc­to­ber 1416) for Olympians and Par­a­lympians from the Rio Games, re­cently .